Your New House Is Ready — Now What? The Complete Shifting Checklist from Handover to Griha Pravesh
The two weeks after handover, what to sell before you pack, how to choose a mover, moving-day order, the paperwork everyone forgets, and a realistic budget — from a builder who watches families move in every month.
The last slab was cast fourteen months ago. The paint dried last week. The engineer handed you the keys, the completion certificate and a warranty card, and now there is a strange silence: the house is done, and the only thing standing between you and living in it is everything you own, sitting in a rented flat across the city. Every GharVistaar handover ends here — and every family asks the same question at the gate: “Ab shifting kaise karein?” This is the answer we give them, written down, from pre-move planning to the first night in the new house.
Key takeaways
Do not move in the week of handover. Give the house 10–14 days after the snag list to cure paint, run water and electrical loads, and deep-clean construction dust.
Book packers 2–3 weeks ahead; October–March and month-ends are peak. Get a written quote, not a phone figure.
Pack by room, label by destination room, photograph valuables, and carry documents, jewellery and medicines yourself.
Move heavy furniture before soft furnishings; fix beds and the kitchen first — the family can live around everything else.
Utilities, address changes and a Griha Pravesh date are the three things people leave for the last day and regret.
Phase 0: the two weeks between handover and moving day
New houses are not ready to be lived in on handover day, even when they are finished. Emulsion paint keeps releasing solvent for a week; the last plumbing joints have not seen real pressure; the electrical board has not carried a full load; and there is a fine grey film of construction dust in every corner the cleaner missed. Use these two weeks well.
Run everything. Open every tap for ten minutes, flush every toilet five times, fill the overhead tank and watch the ceiling below it. Switch on every light, every fan, both ACs and the geyser together for an hour and check that the MCB does not trip. Report anything to your builder now — on a GharVistaar site this is still inside the snag window.
Ventilate. Keep windows open through the day for a week. If the paint smell lingers, bowls of water with a few drops of vinegar in each room help.
Deep clean once, professionally. Construction dust is not house dust; it is cement and gypsum, and it needs a wet mop, not a broom. A professional deep clean for a 1,500 sq ft house costs ₹3,000–6,000 and is the best money of the whole move.
Pest control before furniture. Anti-termite treatment was done at the plinth; a general spray now, in an empty house, means you never chase cockroaches around a full kitchen.
Measure and plan. Walk each room with a tape and a notebook: where does the bed go, which wall takes the TV, does the old fridge fit the new alcove. This decides what you pack, what you sell and what you buy.
Phase 1: decide what actually moves
A new house is the one chance in a decade to not carry the old house’s clutter into it. Our clients who move best do a ruthless three-pile sort four weeks out: keep, sell or give away, throw. The rule that works: if it has not been used in a year and it was not expensive, it does not get a box. Old mattresses, the broken chair that was going to be fixed, the third pressure cooker, the wardrobe that will not fit the new master bedroom — out. Sell on OLX or to the kabadiwala in the same week; do not let the pile sit.
Then list what the new house needs that the old one did not: curtains for larger windows, a bigger dining table for the new dining area, mattresses for the guest room, a water purifier for the new kitchen. Order these now so they arrive after the move, not before it.
Moving day: label every box by its destination room and carry the documents yourself. Photo: RDNE Stock project / Pexels.
Phase 2: choose the movers, three weeks out
Whether it is a local shift within Ranchi, Noida or Gurugram, or an intercity move because the new house is in a different city from the old job, the choice of mover decides how the day goes. What we tell every client:
A written quote after a survey — phone, video or in person — not a number shouted over a call. The quote should list packing material, labour, vehicle, floors/lift, and any charges for dismantling beds or ACs.
Own staff, not a broker. Aggregator apps subcontract to whoever is free; the crew that turns up has never seen your quote.
Registered and certified. GST invoice (you will need it if an employer reimburses relocation), and for intercity moves, IBA approval means banks and companies accept the paperwork.
Packing material included. Boxes, bubble wrap, stretch film and mattress covers should be in the price; “material extra” is where a ₹8,000 quote becomes ₹14,000.
Insurance offered, in writing. Transit insurance is 2–3% of declared value and worth it for a TV, a fridge and the marble-top table.
In Ranchi we point clients to Surya Packers & Movers, an IBA-approved, ISO 9001 certified company operating from its own office on NH-33 at Booty, with its own crews and a written-quote policy. Their home shifting service in Ranchi covers 1 RK to 4 BHK moves with packing, transport and re-arrangement at the new house, and they handle the Kanke, Morabadi, Harmu and Bariatu belts where most of our Ranchi houses are — including the narrow lanes and society timing rules that trip up outside crews. For a local 2 BHK shift in Ranchi expect ₹6,000–12,000; for a 3 BHK from Ranchi to Delhi or Kolkata, ₹25,000–55,000, depending on volume and season.
In NCR the same checklist applies; there are dozens of movers, so the written quote and the GST invoice are what separate the real companies from the phone numbers.
Phase 3: packing, one week out
Even with movers packing, the week before is yours. Order of work:
Documents first, and by hand. Sale deed, sanctioned plan, completion certificate, warranty card, loan papers, passports, Aadhaar, PAN, insurance, school certificates, medical files. One folder, one bag, travels with you, never in the truck.
Valuables next. Jewellery, cash, laptops, hard drives, the family’s medicines for two weeks. Also with you.
Photograph everything expensive. The TV screen, the fridge, the sofa, the marble table, the AC units — front and back, with the date. If something arrives damaged, the photograph is the claim.
Empty and defrost the fridge 24 hours before. Drain the washing machine, tape the drum bolt in. Disconnect gas; book the LPG/PNG transfer.
ACs and geysers. Get them uninstalled by a technician the day before, gas-locked, and note the model numbers. The new house has the points ready; reinstallation is ₹1,500–2,500 per unit.
Pack by room, label by new room. “Kitchen – daily use”, “Master bedroom – wardrobe”, “Kids – books”. Number the boxes and keep a list on your phone. The first-night box — kettle, tea, four plates, bedsheets, toilet paper, chargers, a knife, soap, towels — travels with you.
Plants and pets go in your own car, last out and first in.
Phase 4: moving day
Start early. Loading a 3 BHK takes four to six hours with a trained crew; unloading and placing takes three to four. In September–March the day is comfortable; in May–June start at six and keep water for the crew.
One family member at the old house till the truck leaves; one at the new house from before it arrives. Give the new-house person the room plan.
Protect the new floors. Ask the crew to lay cardboard or old bedsheets in the corridor and on the stairs; a scratched vitrified tile on day one is a bad memory. Wrap the door frames at the corners.
Heavy first: beds, wardrobes, fridge, sofa, dining table into their final positions before a single box comes in. Then boxes to their labelled rooms.
Count the boxes off the truck against your list before the crew leaves. Check the fridge, TV and washing machine work before signing the delivery slip.
Fix the beds and the kitchen the same evening. Everything else can wait a week; nobody should sleep on a mattress on the floor in their own new house.
Beds and kitchen first; the living room can be arranged over the weekend.
Phase 5: the paperwork nobody remembers
Most of this can be done in the two weeks before the move, online, in an evening.
What
Where / how
When
Electricity connection in your name
Discom portal (UPPCL, BSES, DHBVN, JBVNL) with completion certificate and sale deed
2 weeks before
Water and sewer connection
Authority / Jal Board with sanctioned plan
2 weeks before
PNG / LPG transfer
IGL / gas agency; new connection needs address proof
1 week before
Broadband and DTH shift
Provider app; check fibre availability at the new address first
1 week before
Aadhaar, bank, PAN address
mAadhaar / bank branch / online
After move
Vehicle RC and driving licence
Parivahan portal
Within 30 days
School, employer, insurance, courier
Email with new address and pincode
Move week
Home insurance
New policy for the new house — structure + contents
Before move
Phase 6: Griha Pravesh and settling in
For most of our clients the housewarming is the real finish line. Fix the date with the family priest before booking the movers, not after — auspicious dates cluster, and the packers’ calendar fills around the same weeks. A simple order that works: move on day one, set up beds and kitchen, Griha Pravesh puja on day three or four when the house is clean and the boxes are out of the living room, and the bigger gathering a week or two later once the curtains are up.
In the first month, keep the builder’s number handy. A new house settles: a hairline crack at a lintel corner, a window that swells in the first monsoon, a tap that drips — all normal and all inside the one-year finishing warranty on a GharVistaar contract. Photograph, WhatsApp, and let the site engineer fix it.
Budget for the move
Item
Local shift, 3 BHK
Intercity (Ranchi ↔ NCR), 3 BHK
Packers and movers
₹9,000 – 18,000
₹25,000 – 55,000
AC / geyser uninstall + reinstall (3 units)
₹6,000 – 9,000
₹6,000 – 9,000
Deep clean + pest control (new house)
₹5,000 – 9,000
₹5,000 – 9,000
Transit insurance (2–3% of value)
₹2,000 – 5,000
₹4,000 – 10,000
New curtains, mattresses, kitchen basics
₹15,000 – 60,000
₹15,000 – 60,000
Connections and transfers
₹3,000 – 8,000
₹3,000 – 8,000
Total
₹40,000 – 1.1 lakh
₹60,000 – 1.5 lakh
Keep this in the construction budget from the start. The families who feel the move as a shock are the ones who spent the last rupee on the house.
Six moving mistakes we see every month
Moving in on handover day. Paint fumes, untested plumbing and cement dust for the family’s first night. Wait two weeks.
Booking the cheapest phone quote. The crew that arrives is not the one you spoke to, the material is “extra”, and the TV travels unwrapped. A written, surveyed quote costs nothing.
Packing the documents in a box. The sale deed and completion certificate in a carton at the bottom of a truck is a mistake you only make once.
No room plan at the new house. Furniture goes wherever the crew drops it and is moved three times by the family over the weekend, scratching the new floor each time.
Forgetting the utilities. Arriving to a house with no gas connection and a dead broadband line; both take a week to transfer.
Skipping insurance on an intercity move. A 2–3% premium against a cracked fridge or a marble table in pieces on a 1,200 km highway.
A one-page checklist
Handover snag list closed; completion certificate in hand
10–14 days: run water/electrical, ventilate, deep clean, pest control, measure rooms
4 weeks: sort keep / sell / throw; order new items for delivery after the move
3 weeks: mover shortlisted, survey done, written quote with material and insurance
Sumit Chauhan (projects) and Md Parvej Ansari (engineering, NIT Jamshedpur). We build houses, builder floors, villas and commercial buildings across Delhi NCR and Jharkhand. Every number in this article comes from our own BOQs and site data, cross-checked with the sources listed at the end.
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